Tell Me How Much You Love Me
by Shyanna
Summary: Gaara witnesses his death at the hands of the Akatsuki, and his resurrection at the hands of his friends, and his beloved blue-eyed angel. One-Shot/ Completed/ Sort-of-vaguely-if-you-look-really-hard-romance!


**Tell Me How Much You Love Me**

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, or Gaara, or anyone else mentioned. I just love them to pieces and therefore love to write them as I please tehe.

_Dedicated to my darling critic, Miss Supernukunuku / Zombrigit._

* * *

He was screaming.

Or at least he thought he was. No sound came from his mouth though his jaws were stuck wide open, locked in place as the abomination jitsu of the Akatsuki sucked Shukaku from his being. It was sucking his life out with the bijuu too.

All he could do was lie there, suspended feet above the dirty ground, lifeless and unable to help himself.

Worthless.

He was powerless to struggle against the terrible force that held him there, and so he watched as his life and soul were sucked from his throat, listening through the horrible blackness that his mind was left in as their laughter faded into nothingness.

When he opened his eyes again, he was staring into a ghastly white. So prismatic and horrifying in it's presence he blinked several times to ensure he was actually looking at _something._

His eyes darted this way and that, trying to grab a hold of something other then sheer white light that blinded him. He could find nothing.

Very slowly a small black dot appeared in the distance, and he stared hard it. Concentrating on something of matter before he lost his mind.

_Was it ever there?_

It drew closer, and he realized he was looking at a mirror image of himself. Almost, he was staring at what he used to be, because he was quite certain he was dead. Or at least hanging between the worlds of the living and the land of the ancestral spirits.

The Gaara in front of him was staring back, lifeless and cold. No emotion in those jaded eyes, no sparkle of life, no hint of merriment. Was this who he had been in life?

Gaara could not remember.

He couldn't remember who he was, who he had been. His childhood memories were wiped blank, but he felt no real need to remember them at all. All he knew was that he didn't like the person he was staring at, as they gazed back into his own eyes so coolly.

So dead.

How he knew it was him, Gaara could only assume because of the reflection in those cold eyes. The red hair. The tattoo. The same cold, dead eyes.

He flinched openly, lowering his gaze to the white surface he stood upon. It blinded him again, forcing him to raise his eyes and stare back into the person he'd been in life.

How cold, what a waste of an existence.

And then he realized he was only staring at himself. There was no one else around. Had he been alone in life? He couldn't seem to remember, and at last he scrambled to catch a hold of some semblance of the life he'd lived.

_Was anyone ever there?_

Nothing came to him for a while, and he simply gazed at his counter-part. A vague shift in his thoughts broke through as his eyes drifted lower and latched onto to the dark brown vest he wore in life, and he remember a name.

Temari.

His sister, that was right. She had blond hair and green eyes, and thought they were never close, though he frightened her, she'd protected him as best as she could from afar. He blinked again.

Yes, his big sister. The oldest in the family. There was another one too, he had a brother. Kankurou. He remembered the purple streaks of war paint, the markings of a master puppeteer as he'd been told.

As his eyes slid shut again, a low hum resounded throughout his mind, and when he opened them again, he was staring at green fields. Two people were running about, screaming at the top of their lungs, fighting with a man dressed in black.

He looked around him, down, and up again. He couldn't see his body, but he was watching somehow.

_Did I deserve to be alone?_

He recognized the man, with his high blond ponytail and the rippling black robes marred by red clouds. To him it was the sign of the apocalypse, but the end of the world had already come for Gaara. He watched as they fought, the oldest of the team of two squatting near the rear as he tried to supply back up for the wild one in the front.

He was blond too, the one trying so desperately to kill Diedra. They didn't look anything alike though; he thought it funny to be so similar yet so different. The smaller one, he was energetic, and he was angry.

Diedra was calm, and he was amused.

Gaara watched on as they battled mercilessly, explosions devastating the land they fought on, and he idly wondered what they were fighting about. It had to have been something of great importance, to become so angry that the smaller one felt the urge to murder Diedra.

He blinked again, and the name came to him swiftly. He knew him. He knew those blue eyes that used to dazzle him in life, that smile he'd witnessed, he knew that smile very well. It was the first one ever directed towards him, which had been a wonderful memory.

_But you were there, weren't you?_

A melancholy thought passed through him, and he wondered if this was his fate. Was he doomed to watch the living as they lived out their lives, unable to join them in the joys and pains of life? That feeling quickly passed, because the fight shifted, and Gaara was now staring not at his backside, but at his face.

He smiled to himself. He knew those eyes so well. Those beautiful blue crystal orbs of hidden intelligence and strength. He knew his name.

Naruto.

Naruto Uzumaki.

Now he wondered again what it was Naruto was fighting Diedra over. He remember the blond ninja was very clear that he didn't really like to kill people, even though he was a trained assassin. It had to have been something very bad for Naruto to go on the offense like he was doing.

Gaara watched as his beloved blue eyes shifted into red, reduced to slits from their wide-eyed sparkling counterparts, and Naruto fell to all fours. He titled his head, suddenly remembering that Diedra was the one who'd attacked the village he loved, the place he called home.

That was right, Diedra tricked him through his protective sands, and he handed Gaara to the Akatsuki to suck the demon from him. Diedra was the one who killed him.

He watched as Naruto roared angrily, and he watched an impossible amount of raw chakra exploded from his body.

_I think I remember, I remember seeing you there, didn't I?_

His green eyes glinted suddenly, unbeknownst to him as Naruto pounded the earth in his terrible rage. He was shouting, but Gaara could not hear the words pour from his angry lips. It didn't bother him, as long as he was watching his friend.

His friend, that was right. Naruto had shown him how to be loved and respected. He'd helped Gaara get away from his terrible past, to show him how to make the ghosts that haunted him leave him be.

Ah, his past. The memories flooded back, but Gaara paid them no heed. He watched instead as Naruto's demon was forced back by the silver haired man, and the blond fell into his waiting arms to recuperate.

Gaara smiled a little, because Diedra appeared to be dead. Even if he wasn't it was all right though, because he was at least gone, and Naruto was safe for a little while longer. He didn't want his friend to die the same way he had, that would be unbefitting for his beloved blue-eyed savior.

He watched in concern as the monstrous clay creation Diedra had used blew apart, and some clones of Naruto landed behind the real one, his own body between them. It was not his corpse that made him shift in worry, but the look on Naruto's face, the pain in his eyes as he glanced at Gaara's lifeless body.

Was that what he had been fighting over? Had Naruto been attempting revenge for Gaara's death?

_I know I seen you there._

Gaara blinked again, and he was in a different clearing now, watching as Naruto screamed his lungs out, silent to him still, at an old woman. A pink-haired girl was at his corpse's side, trying to heal him. He smiled, the efforts of ninja. Gaara was one of the worst people they could ever meet, and yet she was trying to help him.

These were kindhearted people, and it made him feel a little better in his death to know they were still alive. Maybe if all the people like him, who were evil and insane died, those left behind, like Naruto and the pink-haired girl, Sakura, that was right, were left, everything would be ok.

He smiled to himself, inside where no one could see. The old woman was beside him, whispering to herself. Gaara simply looked on, still musing over Naruto's attempt to get revenge for his death. He knew her too though, the old woman. She was one of the village elders, Chiyo.

She had a brother too, but he couldn't remember his name. He didn't understand why she was there; Chiyo didn't like the village. Her grandson had left, and since that day she'd been violent and rude, refusing to help her own people out. Gaara's curiosity got the best of him as he watched, and he felt himself drift closer.

She was pushing green light into him, the same healing technique Sakura had tried to use on him. Ah, he didn't remember if she'd been a medical ninja or not, but all the same he knew her attempts to bring him back to life were futile. He didn't understand why she was trying to either.

_I think you loved me._

He watched as tears fell from Naruto's cheeks, falling to bended knee beside Gaara's body. Chiyo lifted her withered head to stare at him, and Gaara understood the awe in her eyes. Naruto was a very special person; very few people were as kind as he was.

He was the embodiment of everything Gaara wanted to be in life, but of the things that were too far out of reach for him. That was ok though, as long as he got to watch those blue eyes flash in his land of mid-life and half-death.

The winds in the clearing stopped blowing as Naruto placed his tan fingers over Chiyo's, and the pressed lightly against Gaara's still chest. The orb of green light she had tried to push into him earlier reappeared, and it grew to monstrous proportions.

Gaara blinked again, and he looked around in confusion. He was staring at himself again, but he was a child. A little thing that made his heart clench painfully in his chest, lowering his eyes to the cracked desert floor as the gourd on his back bounced, tiny tears falling down his little cheeks as he cried.

He blinked again, and he watched in horror as a tiny version of his beloved friend also cried to himself, his white shirt rippling as his shoulders bounced from his wracking sobs. It hurt him more to see Naruto cry then to watch himself, so he turned away. When he looked back he was staring at himself again, older, still alone, and still crying.

The scene shifted again, and he was comforted to see that Naruto was no longer crying like he was. Instead a man stood next to him, a thin scar on his nose and his bushy brown hair in a high ponytail. Iruka, Naruto called him. Gaara watched as the desert reappeared, and he was still crying on the cracked floor. Still alone.

_Tell me how much you love me?_

The greenery of Naruto's village reappeared, and many people were standing by his beloved friend. Naruto was smiling instead of crying, and it warmed Gaara's heart considerably to see it. That was the ninja he knew, the happy, well-loved aspiring Hokage he'd come to love.

There were so many people around Naruto Gaara was having trouble seeing him, but that was ok. He just wondered if he'd ever had anyone in life to stand next to him like that. So far he'd seen no one standing beside him, and that took away his happiness from seeing Naruto around his friends.

Friends that were really family, maybe that was the trick he'd missed in life. Gaara knew many people, he worked with them daily, but they were never close. They were not trusted people, and even though he'd given up everything to defend his village, he was still an outsider; a monster to his people, and utterly alone as far as he knew. He watched as Naruto turned, it seemed someone had called to him.

The small boy turned around, pushing people away as he ran backwards through his crowd of friends and family. He stumbled as he ran; the green grass beneath his feet seemed slippery. He was shouting, and at first Gaara could only hear silence. Very slowly, as the little blond ninja ran as fast as he could, the single word he was screaming came to his observer.

"Gaara!"

He jumped, shock reverberating through him as he watched the blue-eyed angel reach him, quelling his childhood tears.

**I love you enough to never let you go.**

Gaara blinked again, staring into vivid blue eyes.

"Gaara."

Naruto's husky voice tickled his ear, and he could only stare in shock at the face in front of him. His beloved friend's face, the one that had rescued him from not only himself, but from death's clutches.

His Naruto.


End file.
